“Kitsch ... is one of the major categories of the modern object. Knick-knacks, rustic odds-and-ends, souvenirs, lampshades, and African masks: the kitsch-object is collectively this whole plethora of trashy, sham or faked objects, this whole museum of junk which proliferates everywhere.... Kitsch is the equivalent to the cliché in discourse.”—Jean Baudrillard (b. 1929)

“Thats the great danger of sectarian opinions, they always accept the formulas of past events as useful for the measurement of future events and they never are, if you have high standards of accuracy.”—John Dos Passos (18961970)

“The gods being always close to men perceive those who afflict others with unjust devices and do not fear the wrath of heaven.”—Hesiod (c. 8th century B.C.)

“Of course Im a black writer.... Im not just a black writer, but categories like black writer, woman writer and Latin American writer arent marginal anymore. We have to acknowledge that the thing we call literature is more pluralistic now, just as society ought to be. The melting pot never worked. We ought to be able to accept on equal terms everybody from the Hassidim to Walter Lippmann, from the Rastafarians to Ralph Bunche.”—Toni Morrison (b. 1931)